Building An Email List – Part 2

Your Web Pro LLC — 2018-05-30

A question that comes up often is how to build up a good email list to use in continued marketing efforts. There are certainly some right and wrongs to doing this. In fact, doing this the wrong way might hurt your efforts for a very long time. Last week and this week we are be looking at the best practices for building and managing and email marketing list.

Giveaways For List Building

One of the most effective methods we have seen for building up an email list is to run a giveaway. The idea is simple. You make a download like “10 tips for getting your home ready to sell” then run a campaign somewhere like Facebook offering the free tool everyone. In order to get the tool, they simply signup for your email list. Now you have a lead and an ongoing marketing contact. You can use other things like a gift card to a local restaurant, but we have found it most effective when the prize is something that is relevant to what you sell. A contest can be done in a similar fashion.

Sending Frequency and Management

Once you have the list, your next step is to manage it well. This has two parts. First, don’t send too often. Once a week is the max we recommend, and many businesses should focus more on once a month. You don’t want to burn people up with something from you every day. On the other end, however, if you are inconsistent in sending you will not see much effectiveness.

Second, as people move, or change try to update their addresses. Your list manager should show you those that have rejected. Try to follow-up and see if you can update your records to keep sending those marketing pieces. After all, they wanted to receive those initially, so they probably still do.

Hopefully this has been a helpful two part series on building a good email marketing list. If you have questions or other ideas just holler at us.